PRACTICAL TREATISE

ON THE

Law, Privileges, Proceedings, and Usage

OF

PARLIAMENT.

BY

THOMAS ERSKINE MAY, Esq.

OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW;

CLERK ASSISTANT OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

FOURTH EDITION.

REVISED AND ENLARGED.

LONDON:

BUTTERWORTHS, 7, FLEET-STREET,

Law Publishers to the Queen's most Excellent Majesty.
HODGES, SMITH AND CO., GRAFTON-STREET, DUBLIN.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY HENRY HANSARD, NEAR LINCOLN'S-INN FIELDS.

PREFACE.

CONSIDERABLE additions have been made to this Treatise, in the present edition, which embraces the latest precedents, and all changes of law and practice, to the end of the Session of 1858.

The Author, having received gratifying acknowledgments of the utility of his work in several of the British Colonies, and in the United States of America, has endeavoured to adapt it still more to the requirements of those legislative bodies, in all parts of the world, in which the rules of the British Parliament have been adopted, by rendering references to the Journals, and other authorities, less frequently necessary, for a practical understanding of the text.

In this, as in previous editions, incidental allusions only have been made to constitutional history, which the Author hopes to illustrate in another work, which, though it has long engaged his attention, he has not yet had leisure to complete.

January 13th, 1859.